Love Across the Bullpen
by Angelus1
Summary: It wasn't where she expected it would happen, but Dana Scully always knew that, eventually, she would fall head over heels in love with Fox Mulder.


Title: Love Across The Bullpen  
  
Author: Angelus  
  
E-mail:   
  
Subject: The X-Files  
  
Category: MSR (As if I would write something other than a romance)  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Summary: During the dark times of Scully's battle with cancer, she finally sees that Mulder is the light at the end of the tunnel.  
  
Spoilers: Ummm...I think it's The End. Whichever ep it is that CSM sets the office on fire. And all the cancer eps, I guess - only because I talk about the fact that she has the cancer. But no real specific ones.  
  
Archive: Anywhere, just let me know first.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own The X-Files, Mulder, Scully, or A.D. Kersh; they are all the property of CC, Fox, and 1013. Scully I let go free, Mulder's dressed in pretty pink frocks curled in the fetal position at the foot of my bed, and Kersh's body is the one that everyone thinks is in Jen's trunk.  
  
Author's Notes: Well first of all, this is kind of a screwed-up time frame. The office is no more, Scully has cancer, and Kersh has replaced Skinner. This story is influenced by an amusing anecdote from my mom's time in New York. Love to Steve the Whiner! And...that's about all I have to say, other than The X-Files went down the crapper after season seven, but I still love it to death, and I hope to be getting more MSR fanfic out there.  
  
Dedication: To Jen and my SarahWhuffa again. I've just recently realized how few people I really can trust, but you two have proven time and time again that you're true friends, and thank you for sticking by me again. Whuffa, you know I'll be there when Ken goes back to Japan, and Jen you know who to come to when the inevitable breakup comes, lol. Thanks again to you both.  
  
~*~  
  
It was inevitable.  
  
She had expected it to come at a more poignant time in her life, though - maybe during or right after one of their heartwrenching, bittersweet "talks". It was amazing how much more often they were coming; probably about one a week. She was getting tired of them, actually. Really, all they did was play out the same parts under different costumes, different names, and different settings. But what did the specifics matter when the plot was always exactly the same: she had only a limited amount of time left, they needed answers, he would miss her.  
  
If she had it her way, they wouldn't have these talks. If she had it her way, he would understand that all she needed was for everyone to stop treating her like she was made of spun glass. So maybe it wasn't such a surprise after all that Dana Scully had fallen in love with her partner Fox Mulder in the middle of the bullpen.  
  
It, too, was a place that she loathed, but after the office had caught on fire they had been reassigned to drudge work: stakeouts, wiretap duty...you name it, they had done it and hated it.   
  
For quite awhile Scully had been contemplating quitting, for the FBI was no longer the job that she had once loved. She saw Mulder maybe twenty minutes a day if she was lucky, which was reason enough in itself to quit, but more importantly she no longer felt that sense of accomplishment that working with him on the X-Files had brought her. The minute she got home, she ate, took a shower, and collapsed into bed in preparation to wake up the next morning and do it all over again. Her weekends offered her little more interest: a combination of more sleeping and eating, with a good solid five hours or so of reviewing field reports. Occasionally, Mulder called, but their telephone conversations lacked the warmth that they had once held.  
  
She had been surprised that day when he had called her in her cubicle. They had both had work that they should be doing; she was hungry and tired and cranky and irritable, and what the hell did he want? she had snapped.  
  
He had apologized then, in that way that he had of making her feel like she held his heart in her hands, waiting for the day when she would send it tumbling to the ground at breakneck speed to shatter into a million tiny shards. Immediately, she had felt regret, and had asked him a little more nicely why he was calling.  
  
Stand up, he had said.  
  
So she had stood.  
  
And halfway across the room, he had stood as well, receiver still clutched tightly to his ear in a mirror image of her own position. Then he had tucked it between his cheek and his shoulder and had raised both hands in the classic position of a mock gun. One of her eyebrows had raised, almost unconsciously, as her mind had raced trying to imagine what he had up his sleeve.  
  
Pointing the "gun" at the back of Assistant Director Kersh's shiny, bald brown head, he'd shot.  
  
And she'd laughed. For the first time in months, instead of worrying or being scared or crying or yelling, she'd simply laughed. He'd joined in as well, howling along with her as if it were the funniest damn thing he'd ever seen in his entire life. As tears of joy streamed down her face, she noticed that they were both receiving strange looks. But she didn't feel as if they were looking at her with pity because of the cancer anymore - they were just looking at her. Because she was with him. And she was as happy as she could possibly be about it. She was with Mulder - her partner, her confidant, her best friend, her touchstone. This was the man that no matter what, despite his annoying hovering, would always be there to look out for her, to give her strength, or a shoulder to cry on. This wonderful, beautiful man was the one who was ridiculed because of his beliefs to the point where no sane man or woman would give him half a chance to get to know him for the person he was.   
  
And that just made her laugh harder. Let them snicker and talk about him - it was their loss and her gain, for the beautiful, misunderstood man that stood across from her now was all that she needed to make it through this ordeal, both mentally and physically.  
  
It was then that she had known, beyond any hint of a shadow of a doubt, that she was truly, madly, deeply in love with him.  
  
"C'mere," he'd said when they'd finally stopped laughing. They'd smiled at one another, understanding an underlying meaning in the words that only two people as close as they could do. She'd hung up the phone and walked over to his cubicle on the other side of the room.  
  
"Scully..." he'd started, but she'd shushed him with a verbal command and a finger forestalling his lips.  
  
"Don't say anything," she'd instructed. So he hadn't. Instead, he'd taken her face in his hands and kissed her thoroughly. Mouths and lips and tongues had collided, Mulder's arm dropping to around Scully's waist while one of her hands threaded through his short brown hair.  
  
When they'd pulled away, they'd heard cheers, and had looked up to see every other agent standing to watch them. With sheepish smiles and red cheeks, he'd placed a gentle kiss on her cheek and took her hand in his to give it a reassuring squeeze. Together, they'd bowed, eliciting even more cheers. And then she'd gone back to her cubicle and tried to go back to work as if nothing had happened.  
  
Twenty minutes later, the phone had rung.  
  
"So...what are you wearing?" he'd asked. And again, she'd just smiled. 


End file.
